


Obsessions

by Little_Tanuki



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Adventure, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2019-10-02 00:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17254286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Tanuki/pseuds/Little_Tanuki
Summary: A strange experiment leads Bashir and O'Brien in a stolen ship across the galaxy.[Completed, October 2009 -- will keep posting until the end.]





	1. Chapter One

At the very edge of the vacuum, all was silent. The pulse of the universe turned - slow and ponderous - a constant, slumbering heartbeat. Rise and fall, spin and heave. A towering red and yellow nebula - the ghost of some long ago forgotten star - floated silently through the void, and bathed the surrounding space in a constant, soft hued twilight.

On the boundary of this same cloud, the planet with no name was drifting. Wind swirled in gusts across its surface. And yet, despite the colours that some might even call beautiful, it was cold and barren - a dry, lonely sentinel lost as long as memory at the very fringes of the galaxy.

From a distance, its form was deceptively still, revealing nothing of the fearsome sandstorms that battered its already abused atmosphere. But close to, the edge of the sky bore a far more hazy appearance, reds and sandy browns showing themselves for the turmoil they really represented. And the planet with no name taunted in its solitude. Constant thick clouds never once relented, never once allowed a glimpse at what - if anything - could be found beneath that cover.

After a long silence, a second, much smaller ghost emerged from the darkness and into the dull gleam of twilight. Shapes resolved themselves from the distance. From no more than a barely visible arrow came the spread of something very much like wings, a protruding metal hull, and two painted streaks of orange running all the way from nose to tail.

They're here, thought the watcher.Perhaps this time…

The watcher was pleased to see the approaching vessel move in closer, and circle once around the planet with no name before finally settling into some kind of orbit. Had it known how, or even had a face to smile with, the watcher would have smiled. It had chosen well this time. After all those other grandiose failures, this was the closest that any of them had ever come. It had invested so much with every attempt, planned so carefully, allowed for every contingency. This time, surely…

A shock wave burst upwards from the planet's surface, shaking and pummelling the tiny vessel. Even from its distant observation post, the watcher could feel its force. But many times more powerful was the shock of imminent failure.

No! It was the closest any of them had ever come, so close that the watcher could almost taste the anticipation of those on board.

It stared in horror at the wayward ship, silently cursing its inability to stop what was happening, or even to look away. After such careful preparation, so much planning of every possible detail. For them to fail now… Again? The very notion was painful beyond comprehension.

But clearly, the watcher thought, its mistake could not be entirely a matter of bad planning. It had been too careful, gone through all the possible scenarios, mapped its course far too thoroughly to leave any room for error. No. It was obvious now. The fault was with the life forms on board the stricken vessel. They must have been too clumsy. Or too slow to react. Or simply too ready to be swept away by the same certainty that had - sooner or later - laid claim to all who had come before.

The watcher turned its shapeless body around, and crept away. Next time, it would have to make sure that its subjects were more worthy.

It did not stay to watch, even as the shuttle burst apart in a cloud of sparkling flame.

***

"There you are, Chief."

Miles O'Brien turned around, and held even tighter to his glass of Malt whiskey. A scowl passed over his face. Whatever happened, he would not be letting go of his drink without a fight. Although, to be honest, he was unlikely to end up with any choice.

It was Dax, striding confidently across the floor of Quark's with her cool blue eyes fixed on their mark. With every stride, O'Brien felt his stomach sink still further.

"You remember that problem we had last week?" she began.

"Which one?" There were always so many.

"The computer backups."

Oh. That one. That problem that's taken practically all bloody week, round the clock, to fix? How could I forget? They'd been randomly locked out of the computer, on and off, for the better part of a month.

"I might…" Caution was threaded through O'Brien's voice.

"Well, it's started again."

"You're joking!" Mouth hanging open like it was weighted down with lead, the sandy-haired engineer turned a disbelieving stare in her direction. "I mean, this is the first spare moment I've had in days, and if it's not one thing it's…"

His voice faded. He paused, studying her carefully, and the sudden tension went out of his shoulders. Half from relief and half from sheer irritation, a quiet sigh escaped through his nose. "You were joking."

There was an all too familiar gleam in Jadzia Dax's clear blue eyes. "Yes," she confirmed, entirely unrepentant. "I was."

"Very funny. And you never did have to come all this way. I should've known."

…Not unless you had a particular desire to see how I'd react.

"But isn't there some kind of Earth tradition?" She seated herself on one of the empty chairs beside him.

She means April Fools'.

"Entirely the wrong time of year," he reminded her, scowling only half in jest. "Besides, we've been waiting a long time for this."

"And of course -" The mischief in Dax's eyes was plain, and potent. "By 'we', you mean…"

"Me and…"

"…Julian," she finished for him. "You've got your hands on some new battle simulation, and you're just dying to test it out."

"How is it that you know everything?"

"Just lucky, I guess." She shrugged. "And, he told me."

Should've known. No-one alive can keep a secret from Dax.

She stood up, eyes still gleaming with barely concealed mischief. "He's closer than you think," she told O'Brien, and nodded towards the entrance, where a tall, long-limbed man was already surveying the bar. Dax waved.

Finally noticing the smiling woman and her more irate companion, Julian Bashir made a direct approach for their table. His mouth opened in a broad grin.

Dax stood to leave as she returned his smile. "I'll leave you both to it," she whispered to Miles. "Have fun."

***

This is easier than I expected, came an unbidden thought from the silence. I could stay in this place for years. Nobody would ever know. Would have thought they'd put up better security than this.

The passage was as dark as the sky above the shapeshifter's home world - a place his kind had chosen for their retreat from a galaxy that feared them, hunted them, and drove them into the shadows.

Grids of light passed across the peculiar humanoid form he'd chosen to adopt for the sake of expediency. It was nothing unusual, of course - that expediency required disguise. After so much time spent hiding, as the solids gradually spread to every corner of the galaxy, and even after the shapeshifter and his kind had risen from their place in the darkness and become the masters of a powerful empire, the outcome had barely changed. The solids still feared them. But at least they had evolved into something to be feared - a force with the strength to bite before they were bitten themselves.

It would take time, but their order would come to the galaxy. And then the galaxy would accept it, or perish.

Yes, he thought. I could stay here, see this through. But then, what would be the point? A loose alliance with a barely known entity, built on the foundation of unintended promises? That was hardly worth staying away for. Besides, the others had given him a clear directive. Get in. Complete the mission. Get out. That was just what he planned to do.

And this pair - the tall, spidery human and his pink-faced companion - these would be the perfect choice.

The shapeshifter looked down to check the device in his hand, which flashed and flickered hypnotically. He knew exactly what he had to do. And he smiled.


	2. Chapter Two

"End program," gasped Miles, and noted with some relief that the sky and greenery were obligingly replaced by a grid of illuminated shapes against a darker grey-green background. He was even more relieved to find himself standing less than two steps from the nearest wall.

Propping himself against it, he waited for the sudden wave of nausea to pass, and for the silent grey ripples to clear from his eyes. As he shook the last remnants of giddiness away, he wondered briefly what else in this scene could be so out of place.

Then he realised. No Julian. That was unusual. The slightest hint of something wrong was normally enough to send the doctor rushing to a person's side, often whether that person wanted him there or not.

He looked up, still bent almost double with much of his weight resting on the wall, and ignored the swaying and tilting beneath his feet. And there was the doctor. Julian Bashir was little more than five steps away, leaning back, face pale, gasping as if he'd been kicked in the chest.

"You too?" Miles asked breathlessly.

Bashir turned to look towards him, and after several drawn out moments, the feeling seemed to pass.

"I suppose so," he confirmed. "But I suggest we don't stay much longer in these heavy costumes."

"No argument from this end."

And one of us'll need to have a little… chat with Quark about malfunctioning environmental controls. Miles added the silent thought, not without a touch of bitterness. With all that went wrong on the old Cardassian mining station, recreation time was hard to come by.

"Had enough?" he asked Julian, carefully releasing himself from the support of the holosuite wall.

He was relieved to see Julian's weary nod, although not at all surprised. It hadn't been bad - while it lasted - but somehow his heart was no longer in the game.

***

Shuffling diagonally across the dimly lit corridor, only half listening to the beat of his own footsteps, Rom - the brother and long-suffering employee of the bartender, Quark - stopped, tensed, and looked behind him. He still had a hyperspanner gripped in one hand, while the other wrapped tightly around a rather heavy box of other tools. Both could make effective weapons, he reflected, if he could believe for a moment that he would ever use them in such a fashion.

There it was again. A loud, reverberating clang as something hard collided with metal. The echoes took several seconds to fade from his hearing.

"Hello?" Rom called. As far as he could remember, his brother hadn't sent anyone else this way. And no-one was booked to enter or leave the holosuites for at least another half hour. With Quark at the bar and his small army of waiters and dabo girls unlikely to venture up from the lower level, Rom was close to certain. He was supposed to be alone.

But there was the same noise. Again. Holding his breath, Rom backed into the shadows. The disconnected sound was twice as loud, which could only mean one thing. Whatever had caused it was coming closer.

***

A brief, once-over scan revealed nothing too far out of the ordinary, but Julian had hardly expected it to. Judging from this, it appeared that their first assumption must have been correct. A sudden rush of warmth to the holosuite interior had been trapped by their heavy, fur-lined costumes, and whatever they'd experienced had been a simple case of overheating.

"Just to be safe," he'd assured Miles, above his friend's protestations. He waved his tricorder like a threat. "I can make it an order if you'd rather."

"Fine," Miles grunted, his gruff Irish tones even more gravel laden than usual. "If you must. Just get it over with."

But he reserved the greater portion of his ire for Quark.

The doctor had never been partial to making open threats. When he had to, he could be convincing enough, but would never feel that his words quite fit. He preferred a level gaze and a firm, commanding tone to actually ruffling people's collars, but Chief Petty Officer Miles Edward O'Brien had no such compunctions.

"None of your excuses, Quark," he growled as Bashir looked on. Snatching the lapels of the Ferengi bartender's jacket, he yanked the smaller man forward until they were almost nose to nose - as if to make perfectly certain that he understood. His usual catch cry ofSatisfaction is not Guaranteed was not going to work this time.

Julian struggled to suppress a grin as the chief continued his unstoppable tirade.

"And one more thing," he concluded finally. "There are more important issues here than your profit margin. This is a matter of public safety and you will see that it doesn't happen again, or so help me…"

"Chief," whined Quark in that pseudo-friendly drawl that regularly set station residents' teeth on edge. He raised his hands. "I'm sorry you feel that way. But it's like I keep saying. If you had only spared one of your oh-so-capable engineers for just a few minutes, I wouldn't be experiencing these problems. Which means that you wouldn't be experiencing these problems. So. You see my predicament, surely?"

Chief O'Brien grumbled something which could have been, "If we'd wanted sweltering heat we'd have picked one o' them bloody Klingon programs."

Quark's rebuttal was cut short by the sudden arrival of a second very pale Ferengi - so pale that Bashir's doctor-instinct instantly propelled him forward.

"Rom? Are you… all right?"

Quark's younger brother looked up from where he'd come close to tumbling down the stairs. He gaped at his audience, his wide-set blue eyes as round as saucers.

"Rom?"

"He's fine," snapped Quark, and grabbed the mute Ferengi by the arm. He gave it a rough shake. "You're fine, aren't you?"

Rom nodded, although his mouth still hung open like he was looking to trap something.

Unsure what was holding him back, Julian stared. But Quark was already making his retreat. "If you gentlemen will excuse me, I have a bar to run."

As one Ferengi half dragged the other around a maze of dabo tables, Miles O'Brien stepped forward. "What was that all about?" he whispered intently.

Julian Bashir shook his head. "I honestly don't know."

But he kept his focus on the two Ferengi brothers until they had disappeared from sight. Breathing, rapid and shallow. Pulse, most likely racing… Rom isn't ill, the doctor realised. He's scared.


	3. Chapter Three

More irritable than ever from Chief O'Brien's earlier abuse, Quark was glad that there was at least somebody around to vent his frustration upon.

"Rom, you idiot," he snapped at the earliest opportunity. "You weresupposed to be working on the holosuite controls. And what's with that stupid look? I ought to take you out and string you up by your lobes."

Rom opened and closed his mouth, standing as mute as a week old garden slug.

This is where you say something, Quark thought angrily. Yes, Brother. Or no, Brother. By the Blessed Exchequer, say anything.This is not how it's supposed to go.

His useless younger brother's mouth continued to open, and close - and open and close again. Quark felt his impatience rise like a mounting flood. Finally, after a long and agonising silence, the muscles in his brother's throat gave a start as though realising - and not before time - that they could make noise.

"Brother…" stammered Rom. "I saw… I saw…"

"Sawwhat?" Quark demanded, his voice easily three times as loud as he had intended it to be.

"I saw… me."

"What?" Had it finally happened? Had Rom finally gone completely, irrevocably insane?

"I saw me. By the holosuite door. It was pretty dark. I don't think he… I mean I… I mean, I don't think whoever it was saw me. But it was definitely… At least, I think it was… Oh, Brother. I'm so confused." His voice trailed away to a thin moan.

You're confused, all right, Quark longed to say. Instead he snarled and threw a rag at Rom.

"Go clean the tables."

***

Julian could find no reason to be as restless as he was that night, and could think of nothing to explain his peculiarly nervous anxiety, like beetles scurrying up and down beneath his skin.

And yet, there he was, lying on his back with his bedclothes kicked into an agitated jumble, his gaze roaming back and forth along every shadow that had forged a path across the ceiling of his quarters. The dim light obscured what little colour there was, and the whole room seemed to mock his search for logical explanations.

Fragmented images paraded through his thoughts, all oddly disconnected like a jigsaw with too many missing pieces. A ship. A planet with no name. A pair of yellow eyes staring coldly from the darkness.

If he had not been so wide awake, he would have wondered if he wasn't dreaming. But in spite of the oppressive silence closing in from every direction, this was surely no dream, and he was equally unable to shake away the call.

Go to sleep, Julian. This is ridiculous. You've got surgery tomorrow. He wondered where his restless gaze had lingered the longest. Was it on the curving beams running like a ribcage across the ceiling and down the nearby walls? Or was it on the starlit shadows creeping inwards from the adjacent room?

With all the time he'd lain awake, he ought to have been able to picture the shapes around his bedroom even with his eyes tightly closed. But every time he did close his eyes, the scattered, dreamlike images rose unbidden into his thoughts. And something was watching him, its eyes solidifying in the uneven lines of light and darkness.

Perhaps a warm drink…

He chuckled, a far more bitter sound than he had expected.

Or perhaps a strong anaesthetic. Or a frontal lobotomy. Might as well face facts - you are not going to sleep tonight.

With a sigh that sounded more like a frustrated scream, he kicked the covers from across his waist and hauled himself out of bed.

***

The corridor of the habitat ring could hardly have been quieter if the entire station had been running on reserve power. Even cruising alone through the blackness of space in a runabout with the lights turned low was never as silent as the early hours of morning on Deep Space Nine.

It was only an artificial night. Julian knew that as well as anyone, and vividly recalled how difficult it had been at first for him to adjust to the new twenty six hour daily cycle. Still, illusion or not, and regardless of how dark the station could be even at the height of each passing day, this near-empty hall was noticeably dimmer than usual.

"This way," said a voice from around the next corner.

Auditory hallucinations now? he thought, surprised at how detached and coldly intellectual the question seemed to him. The same voice drove him onward, beckoning and taunting. But who was to say that he was hallucinating at all? If felt real enough. Maybe there was somebody calling to him, somewhere just beyond his sight. And there was nothing he could do to fight a consuming, almost visceral urge to follow.

"Where are you taking me, then?" he asked in a hushed whisper, his own voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silent corridor. He paused, uncertain for a moment which way he should go, and peered wide-eyed in both directions. He realised belatedly that his feet were leading him in a sharp arc towards the doors of the turbolift.

"This way."

Feeling a hot rush of adrenaline just beneath his skin, Julian asked himself where the voice could have been coming from this time. He stepped inside, and turned to face the open doors. "Docking Bay Five," he heard himself say.

The Docking Ring? demanded a persistently irritating thought. What could possibly be in Bay Five?

The lift sped smoothly towards its destination, but he did not have time to consider the situation before the flashes of light and dark began to slow, and the vibration of the turbolift quietened and ceased. Julian tapped restlessly upon the rail. His brow was furrowed, shoulders slightly hunched, and he waited for the doors to open.

Somebody else was already at the airlock.

"Miles!" exclaimed Julian. He jumped back, startled, and feeling as though he'd been caught in the middle of something ever so slightly illicit.

"Shh." Miles was crouching by the outer wall. He pressed a finger to his own lips, and pointed. "Hear that?"

Something strangely quiet, and pulsing. Nothing at all like the hum of equipment. More like…

"A heartbeat," whispered Julian.

"Exactly!"

"But we shouldn't be able to hear anything coming from out there. It's all sound-proof, isn't it?"

"It ought to be."

"This way."

Miles O'Brien tensed visibly. "I can override the security lock," he said, glancing nervously around him. "It'll take a while to scramble whatever records there might be, but it'll be manageable enough."

"Why not just use your security code?" Bashir turned back from where he'd been peering through the transparent sections of the cog-shaped door. There was something on the other side, but too little was visible to offer any clues.

O'Brien scowled. "Why not yours?"

"Good point." But Julian paused, frowning slightly, asking himself why either of them should be so reluctant to leave a record of their access codes.

The throb of his own blood rushing past his ears was growing steadily louder and faster. And the noise from outside was speeding up to match. Julian's brow tensed still further. Was such a thing even medically possible? For a bone-chilling moment, he wondered if he really was losing his mind. But then, he thought, why would he and Miles be sharing the same bizarre illusion? Why was his friend even there?

Whatever the answer, he was itching to discover what lay beyond that airlock.


	4. Chapter Four

If the clocks on the station should ever stop working, its occupants would still have no difficulty keeping track of time. It was easy to do, requiring nothing more than a sharp eye and a close watch on the daily routine of its ever vigilant Chief of Security.

Except on that day.

It was 0900 hours, far too long past what ought to have been Security Chief Odo's third daily stint of Quark watching time. But as the shops on the Promenade opened their doors, long after the bustling crowd had crept towards its morning peak, he had not had a single chance to check in on the dastardly Ferengi.

He sat at his desk, listening with open consternation to the short, round-bellied, and loudly irate shuttle captain. Even after half an hour of constant shouting, the man had not even paused to draw breath.

"I've been making the same run now for more years than I'd care to count. Do you have any idea how much time - how much work - it takes to build a reputation like mine? People trust me. They can see that I'm always punctual. And that means I run on a tight schedule. Tight, I tell you. I've not missed a single rendezvous yet, and I do not enjoy seeing my ship go… missing."

With that last word, deep cracks were revealed in the shuttle captain's forced veneer of self-control.

"And I hope you can appreciate, these kind of investigations take time." Odo's own impatience was even more poorly concealed. "In the meantime, I will do all I can to ensure that your property is restored to you."

"Intact?"

"The sooner you allow me to do my job, the better able I will be to make you that promise."

***

"I've checked and double checked everything I could find," rasped Odo, standing in his accustomed place at the opposite side of the captain's desk. Benjamin Sisko raised his eyebrows, still waiting to discover exactly why his Security Chief had asked especially to see him over a simple incident of shuttle theft. But there was no chance to speculate, as Odo continued to speak in an even, level tone. "I've been over the shuttle records, station records, computer logs - everything - for any sign of unusual activity."

"And?"

"And, Captain… I am afraid I do not have good news for you. At least, nothing that you are going to like."

"Give me the bad news quickly, then."

The constable handed him a padd, which Sisko accepted with a nod of thanks. But as he studied it, his brow continued to tense by degrees. He paced the length of his desk until his consternation and disbelief were too intense to be contained.

"What?!"

"I was far from certain whether to believe it either," responded Odo. "Unfortunately, in my line of work I am rarely afforded the luxury of assuming that anything is impossible. I've been through every other line of reasoning. There is no evidence of voice imprints or computer malfunctions. I have also ruled out the potential for station wide sabotage, or even some new scheme of Quark's. And now there is no other conclusion I can reach. The records were thoroughly scrambled, but it would appear that whoever accessed the airlock controls has a good working knowledge of the station's systems. It seems that the shuttle in question disappeared some time between 0130 and 0300 hours last night, and since then, neither Chief O'Brien nor Doctor Bashir has reported for duty. I checked the computer. They are not on the station. Which means that whatever it is they've been trying to accomplish, they haven't covered their tracks very well."

"But why would they steal a shuttle?" demanded Sisko, his own sense of incredulity rising along with his voice. True enough, there were times when keeping those two in line - whether separately or together - was like trying to rein in a couple of wayward adolescents. But the majority of their escapades carried at least some rationale, however little he agreed with it at times. This time just made no sense.

No, he corrected himself - with a reminder that he could not afford to dismiss anything as impossible, any more than Odo could. He'd been through too much already to believe that anything happened without some reasoning behind it. The actions of his officers made no sense to him now, but only because he had not yet found a way to explain them.

So we look for that explanation, he decided. And so help me, if they aren't already in trouble, they will be.


	5. Chapter Five

"I need you to keep this to yourselves for as long as you can," Benjamin Sisko had advised them, glancing in turn at Odo, Dax, and the Bajoran Major Kira Nerys. They all nodded, although Dax was still more than a little uneasy about the expectations of secrecy. Sisko's gaze lingered especially long on her. "At least until we know something more than we do. And that's your job, Commander. Find anything that we can use - or at the very least, something to explain what's going on. Any questions, you'll co-ordinate with the constable. Major, I need you to do whatever you can to unscramble the computer records from last night. We have to find out where that ship was going."

"And then what?" asked Kira.

"And then, we get them back."

It was nearly half a day since the moment when Sisko had first called them to his office, but now - finally - Dax felt that she had something reliable to take to the captain.

"What have you found?" Benjamin's deep voice called out to her the moment she strode back into Ops.

Jadzia wasted no time with greetings. Stepping forward, she displayed a strange metal cylinder cupped in one hand. It was the size of her palm, its surface a dull, matted grey except for a ring of pinpoint red specks where lights were most likely meant to flash across the visible plane.

"This was at Quark's," she explained. "It appears that somebody attached it to the outer wall of the holosuite. Possibly while the Chief and Julian were inside."

"Somebody," grunted Odo from barely five steps behind her. He'd been stonily silent for over five minutes. "I would still rather know who it was."

"I'll leave that to you, Constable," said the captain. "My question is, what is it?"

"I don't know," Dax confessed. But she kept her voice clear and assured, and her steel blue eyed gaze as level as she could make it. "But I can tell you that it's set to project a powerful electromagnetic pulse throughout any adjacent rooms. And that's not all. We've discovered that it was meant to go off at regular intervals, and at a very specific frequency."

"Which means?"

Again, Dax worked hard to keep all signs of hesitation or prethought from her voice. "Sorry, Captain, but your guess is as good as mine. No doubt it was designed to have a very particular effect on those inside. As to what that would be, I'm sorry to have to repeat myself, but…"

Sisko scratched the line of his beard. "You don't know."

"And you found that thing in Quark's?" asked Kira as she stepped forward for a closer look.

"Well according to Quark, he knows nothing of any of this," said Dax. She left out the bartender's lengthy protestations that she and Odo were as bad as Chief O'Brien. "He insists that he's done nothing wrong."

"And I believe him."

The latest comment had been far from expected, and all eyes turned towards its source. Jadzia hardly knew which surprised her more - to hear such a view expressed, or to discover that it had come from Odo.

"Captain," the constable persevered, either failing to notice or simply ignoring the vista of collective incredulity. "If Commander Dax's theory is correct, then it would stand to reason that Doctor Bashir is not responsible for what has happened, and nor is Chief O'Brien. And I hate to be the one saying this, but neither is Quark. There is simply no profit in sabotaging his own holosuites."

"Fine," said Captain Sisko. He nodded briefly at Odo, enough to say that this conversational track had ended. "But for the moment at least, placing blame is not our top priority. The first concern has to be, how do we bring them back?"

***

After releasing the station's hold upon their new-found shuttle, Miles O'Brien's next task - as far as he was concerned, at least - was to determine exactly what it was they'd managed to commandeer.

The cockpit was a little under half the size of a runabout's, with a narrow panel setting it apart from what he supposed must have been a larger but equally claustrophobic passenger compartment. Thick, porous padding lined the interior walls, most with a near identical metallic grey shade to the outside of Deep Space Nine. "Homely," muttered Miles under his breath. It was a far bulkier, more sluggish craft than he was accustomed to, patched together as shoddily as a quilt sewn by a five year old. Even the bulkheads were showing visible signs of surface wear, occasionally even bordering on the extreme. It was of no comfort at all to realise that the ship was already down to its final gasp.

The rear section had been hollowed out as if to make room for cargo, but later filled with hard, cramped seating arranged in several rows of two or three. The unusual configuration of every control panel was taking him some time to accustom himself to. Shield controls in particular had been especially difficult to locate, and the old fashioned transporter - roughly installed as though more of an afterthought than as something that anyone had planned - did not appear to be connected to any power source that he could ascertain.

Allowing the vessel to cruise for several minutes on what seemed to be some primitive form of autopilot, Miles set himself the task of hauling open every single access panel he could find. Julian Bashir had offered to help. Of course he had. But O'Brien had met his offer with the most fearsome, uninviting glare that he could muster.

"Believe it or not, Julian. I can do this."

"Don't worry, Chief. I have every confidence in your ability to figure it out. You always do."

"Oh, you're too kind," O'Brien grumbled. "That makes me feel so much better."

Not knowing what had led them to this point did nothing to help the Chief's mood. He was surprised that there wasn't already somebody on their tail, especially since - so far, at least - they'd been led on a pretty obvious course. They had taken a particularly bone jolting ride through the neon blue of the wormhole, and emerged at the other side with no more of an idea of why they'd left the station behind than they'd had when entering.

And as soon as the ship steadied, the doctor had risen calmly to his feet and procured a doubly strong raktajino from a replicator at the very back corner of the passenger cabin.

Neither did anything to draw attention to the fact, but Miles could not help but notice how infuriatingly easy it had been for Julian to adapt to the unfamiliar settings. Extension courses, he thought, shaking his head at the sheer unfairness of it all. Bloody engineering extension courses.

The peculiar anxieties that had plagued him through the night had faded somewhat, but he knew little else but that they were somehow travelling in the right direction. He sighed, wishing that he could at least relax a little more. His head still ached. His skin still felt as if several inch-long beetles were crawling up and down his arms. And meanwhile, Julian was… what? Perched on one of the pilot seats, calmly sipping Klingon coffee like nothing was even amiss.

But when O'Brien finally did glance up, it was clear that the doctor had barely touched his drink. Bashir sat very still, and rubbed his thumb slowly, contemplatively, up and down the side of his mug.

"What do you suppose this is about?" he muttered, staring into its depths as though answers could be fished from the rapidly cooling liquid inside. The muscles of his forehead were gathered into a troubled frown.

Echoing the doctor's expression, O'Brien pushed himself upright - from where he'd been lying on his belly across the deck. "What?"

"This. All of it." With a sweeping gesture, Bashir indicated the hulking mass of their shuttle. "It doesn't make any…" He paused.

"What was that?"

O'Brien rushed over to join him, and barely held back a string of expletives that would have impressed even a shipload of drunken Klingons. He stared in horror at the tiny icons edging unstoppably across a display screen the size of his hand.

"Jem'Hadar," he growled. "Bearing… One Eight Two, Mark Four. Straight for us."

"But there aren't supposed to be any Dominion ships this close to the wormhole."

"Tell them that."

"Well - we know this thing's got sensors, anyhow," commented Julian, suddenly all action as his fingers danced lithely over the controls.

"Which is about all she's got." Dropping into the co-pilot's chair, Miles sensed his own pulse gather speed. His focus was sharp, body flooded with adrenaline as he fought to keep the panic from his voice.

You're a soldier, dammit, he cursed himself. You've been in worse situations than this. For a brief moment - barely longer than it would have taken for him to blink - he thought of Keiko, away on Bajor for another one of her botany expeditions, and of the beautiful dark eyes of his daughter Molly. And for just a moment, he felt their despair. What would it do to them, to hear that he'd ended his days as a far away cloud of vaporised dust and flame?

Then, as suddenly as if he'd simply flicked a switch, years of training and hardened battle experience took hold.

"Transferring power to the forward shields." His voice sounded oddly detached, but he took some comfort from the well-worn lines. "Preparing to bring her about."

"You didn't happen to find us any weapons, did you, Chief?"

"On this old hunk of scrap metal? No such luck." Chief O'Brien stared at the nearest advancing speck. "And I've got even more bad news."

"I know. We're too bulky to outrun them."

"You just had to go ruin my surprise."

Julian's eyes betrayed little emotion, but his answering smile was unusually tight, lips pressed into a thin line. "How long until they have us in range?" he asked.

"One minute and counting."

The doctor whistled, soft and low. "Then I guess we're in for some fireworks."


	6. Chapter Six

"Have you managed to get a workable sensor reading yet?" asked Sisko.

"Nearly," Dax called to him. Since reporting her initial discovery, she'd wanted to find out more, but had been summarily reassigned to assisting Major Kira in her attempts to track the shuttle's last recorded movements. Crouching face first beneath the nearest companel, elbow deep in wires and circuitry, was not how she'd anticipated spending the early hours of the afternoon. But Curzon, Lela, and Torias Dax had all learnt to throw their expectations to the wayside, and now Jadzia Dax was reminded of that same hard lesson.

When exactly did I become this station's resident spare part? she asked herself, although if she was honest, she didn't mind so very much. It was always an extra challenge - to be the one called upon whenever either of her colleagues was sick, indisposed, or otherwise unavailable. But ducking in and out of engineering consoles was far more Tobin's element than it ever had been hers.

But Tobin's not here, Jadzia. You are. So get on with it.

"This is some impressive scrambling work the chief's managed to get done," she told Benjamin as she pressed together yet another pair of glowing wires. Hooking her fingers over the top of the bench, she pushed herself backwards away from the console.

"There," she said. "Try it again now."

"Still nothing." Kira shook her head, and Jadzia held back a sigh of disappointment. But then the major leaned forward, eyes slightly narrowed. "No, wait. I've got something. A shuttle did leave from Docking Bay Five at exactly Oh Two Hundred last night. It's still a little hard to decipher, but its signature… appears to match our missing ship."

"Heading?" barked the captain.

Kira looked up, her expression shifting from puzzlement, to surprise, to anxious concern. "For the wormhole?"

As if something had been activated inside him, Ben Sisko switched instantaneously to full command mode. "Dax. Major. You're with me." He slapped his combadge. "Sisko to Odo."

"Odo here."

"Meet us at the Defiant's docking port," he ordered as the two women joined him in the turbolift. "We've got a shuttle to catch."

"I don't believe it," exclaimed O'Brien. His companion swivelled towards him, open incredulity writ clear upon his face. But once was not even nearly enough to express the magnitude of Chief O'Brien's astonishment.

***

"I don't believe it. They flew right past us. Why?"

"Do I know?" snapped Julian. Now that they were out of immediate danger, the tension of the moment turned quickly to short tempered ire. "I'm a doctor, not a tactician. And certainly not a Jem'Hadar."

Miles sensed that beneath that veil of irritability, his friend was every bit as disconcerted as he was. One distinctively insectoid Jem'Hadar ship had come less than twenty kilometres away from their port side, easily close enough to have scattered the shuttle into a hundred thousand pieces of debris. Miles had felt the slowing passage of time, of seconds stretched to infinity until the moment when he'd realised, Now. Now is the part where you die. With a deep breath, he flexed the tension from his hands. Their company continued on its original course.

O'Brien noted the flash of light as the Jem'Hadar all jumped to warp speed and vanished into the distance.

Something else caught his attention. "Uh oh," he said.

Julian's now anxious gaze was fixed upon him. "'Uh oh'?" he repeated. "What's 'uh oh'?"

"Something I'd hoped wouldn't end up being a problem." O'Brien was quick to rise from his chair. "The integrity in some of these older, heavier models isn't quite what it should be. It doesn't happen often, but - just occasionally, mind - diverting power can be enough to weaken the structural integrity field. And seeing as this ship was on its last legs to begin with…"

"Great." Julian clenched his jaw. "So instead of being shot to pieces, we're going to break apart all by ourselves. Now I feel better."

You and me both, thought O'Brien. Aloud, he said, "I need to get aft. If I can poke around the systems for a bit, I reckon I'll be able to make a pretty decent patch job from there. Decent enough to get us as far as the nearest star system, anyway. Can't say what state we'll be in once we get there. But at least this tin can'll be basically intact. We'll definitely have to put in for repairs at the first place we find."

The doctor gazed thoughtfully at his console. He looked as unhappy as Miles felt at the prospect of a delay.

But after a brief silence, Bashir nodded. "Right. Let's do that. I'll fly, you fix. And let's just hope we don't find ourselves begging for help at some forgotten Dominion outpost somewhere."

"Well, that'll be your job to see to, won't it?" Miles disappeared into the rear compartment, pausing only to remind himself where he'd spied an extra box of tools.

***

Dim neon hues of green and violet filtered softly into the narrow interior of the scout ship, to which the shapeshifter had transported shortly after making his getaway. Worn out and tense, tired of being so far from home, he had isolated himself from his battalion of grim faced Jem'Hadar and instructed the Vorta Eiyon to keep to the same course. Then he had retreated to his quarters to regenerate. The ship was dark, cramped. Crowded. And the shapeshifter longed for nothing at that moment if not for quiet and solitude.

He had no real desire to return to being humanoid, even as his regeneration cycle drew close to completion. Better to remain as he was. Shapeless and fluid, unlimited by the discomforting confinement of solid form. So much easier, so much more peaceful, to allow himself the simplicity of a rock or cloud. But his work was not yet finished. He still had one more task, and so - quietly and reluctantly - the shapeshifter forced himself once more into that familiar but unnatural form.

Arms. Legs. Fingers, he thought with an edge of contempt. But rocks and clouds could not accomplish what still remained incomplete.

His door chimed, and the shapeshifter turned towards it. "Come."

Eiyon had already arranged himself into a low bow, even before the door slid open. "My apologies, Founder, but you asked to be informed of any other ships approaching from the passage."

It was true. Just before his regeneration, the shapeshifter had indeed requested exactly that. He nodded. Striding confidently along the poorly lit corridor, he brushed past Eiyon, who followed him onto the bridge.

"Give me your headpiece," he ordered, and the Vorta obliged without hesitation. A subtle flick of his right-hand thumb was enough to activate it, the shapeshifter immediately rewarded with the flickering, fluorescent green light that typically illuminated an active viewing lens.

"Reopen our previous channel," he told the nearest Jem'Hadar, who was waiting at the helm.

The huge reptilian soldier pressed a button on his console, and a slightly airy, disembodied voice soon reached the shape shifter's hearing.

"It is done?" the voice asked.

"It is done," the shapeshifter confirmed. "Just moments ago, our patrols located their vessel at the Gamma side of the passage. They are coming."

"Yes. The connection is strong. I can sense their presence." There was a pause, and then a noise which sounded very much like breath escaping. "I am pleased."

But the shapeshifter cared little for the pleasure of this curious being. "Just remember what we agreed," he said, his reply soft and taut. "Whatever you discover, you share. And our part in this alliance is finished."

Without waiting for an answer, he severed their subspace connection and turned towards the silently patient Vorta. "Set a course for the home world," he commanded, summarily disappearing into the aft section before Eiyon had a chance to respond.


	7. Chapter Seven

His hands still trembled, but Julian Bashir continued to divide his attention fluidly between the main console and the scrapes, bumps, and occasional swear word that reached him from the unseen compartment at the back. "Are you alright back there, Chief?" he called over his shoulder.

"I fix, you fly," a muffled, slightly reverberating growl reminded him.

"Sorry."

For half a second, he'd considered offering his assistance, even if that meant only watching from the sidelines and passing along whatever tools were needed. But then Bashir recalled the reaction his earlier offer had received. Fair enough, he thought. The chief's very proud of his work. And so he should be.

A shuddering jolt passed all the way through the ship - and from the rear came a crash, a shout of pain, and another round of impressively fluent swearing.

Julian opted not to say anything this time. The first two sounds most probably meant that Miles had banged his head again, but the doctor took his stream of rapid fire curses as proof that his friend was unlikely to welcome any offer of medical attention.

But we can't keep on like this, he thought. It was the third time already that he'd seen the walls rattle. Just twice more - maybe three times at best - and they could farewell any hope of reaching their destination. Wherever that might be.

His determination renewed, he released a breath that he hadn't noticed himself holding in, and stared at the front screen. "Computer. Display current co-ordinates."

He took a moment to study the collection of illuminated curves and circles. His eyes narrowed. "Time to nearest system?"

"Nearest star system identified as Seron Mu. Estimate arrival at current course and velocity in ten minutes, twenty four seconds."

Seron Mu? "Never heard of it," muttered Bashir, feeling a slight headache arise from the tension in his brow.

"Please restate request."

He shook his head. "Never mind. Computer. Uh… Display all records of Dominion activity in this sector and cross-reference."

"Working."

The display changed slightly, luminescent yellow star charts now overlaid with patches of red. Julian thought fast. "Is there any record of Dominion activity in or around Seron Mu?"

"Negative."

Doesn't mean there never has been, he reminded himself uneasily.

"How many planets in the Seron System?"

"Seven."

"Inhabited?"

"Unknown."

Julian sighed. "Well, it's the best shot we have." As if to answer his words, he felt a tremor run beneath his feet. "Ten minutes, you say?"

"Confirmed. Estimated time remaining, ten minutes, sixteen seconds."

He added a silent thought. Let's just hope there's still a ship left once we get there.

***

Miles returned to join him just as the first of three multicoloured gas giants was coming into view. A patch of skin just below his hairline was slightly redder than it most likely should have been, and a dark scowl shaded his eyes. "Where are we?" he asked, slotting himself back into the empty seat.

"Seron Mu," replied Julian as a distant, medium sized star inched steadily across their viewscreen. The planets appeared to revolve around an ice-white cosmic body just a few hundred kilometres wider than the Terran Sun, which emitted a constant, deceptively cold-tinted glow. He pondered momentarily why a star viewed from this distance should remind him so much of the Nativity scenes of old Earth.

"Never heard of it," said O'Brien, breaking Julian away from his thoughts.

The doctor shrugged, but kept his eyes on the brightly glowing spheres. "Neither had I, but the computer seems to think it makes for a good destination. We can put in here for repairs."

"Put in where?" Chief O'Brien's scowl deepened. He stared unhappily at the vista in front of him. "I hate to say it, Julian, but I don't see any evidence that these places are even habitable. Never mind populated."

"I do!" Bashir exclaimed suddenly, and laughed. Miles glanced briefly his way as though attempting to calculate just how certifiable his friend really was. With a grin of triumph, Bashir indicated a blinking green light on the right hand side of his console. "Someone's hailing us."

***

She was watching him, earnest anticipation radiating like solar energy from those clear blue eyes of hers. She'd been watching him ever since they left the station. He could sense that she was itching to speak, and worried in secret that with the docking clamps released, and the Defiant once again launched into the void, she would take the first chance she could find.

"Benjamin," said Dax as soon as they were alone.

Sisko braced himself, and turned around. He'd been right. The muscles in his jaw suddenly felt as taut as refined titanium. "What is it, old man?"

Dax wasted no time in pointless hesitation. "May I ask what you plan to do once we reach the Gamma Quadrant?"

That was one of the many things he admired about Dax. She… He… They had always displayed a near prodigious talent for saying just what needed to be said, at exactly the time when they needed to say it.

Which I suppose is one reason why I already knew what her question would be, he reflected, staring for a moment at the curvature of the Defiant's corridor wall. But he still had to hold back a desire to throw something hard against the bulkhead. Instead, he grimaced, and scratched a patch of skin behind his right ear. He suspected even before he spoke that she'd already guessed his answer.

"I don't know," he said, certain that he would never have confessed to anybody else. "I'm aware that this is like searching for the smallest needle in the largest haystack in the galaxy. But even with what little we already know, it has to be better than nothing."

Suddenly more tired than he'd felt since waking, he returned his attention to those questioning sapphire blue eyes. "I'm open to any suggestions right now."

Dax nodded, and with that small gesture, the captain knew she was resolved. "I'll get right on it."

Benjamin's answering smile was tight, but it was also genuine. That was another thing he liked about Dax. She kept her promises.

"Thanks, old man. I know you will."


	8. Chapter Eight

"It's coming from the fourth planet." O'Brien leaned in close. "Somewhere near the equator."

"Here goes nothing," commented Bashir. Reaching forward, he opened a channel.

"This is Ushia Den SaiNor of Seron Dala Planetary Traffic Control," a loud, slightly tinny and distorted voice announced. "Unknown vessel, state your business."

"Our business?" Julian whispered urgently. "What is our business?"

"We're on a supply run through some nearby systems," offered O'Brien. It was as plausible a lie as any other he could think up at such short notice. "I guess we must've gotten a little lost."

There was silence at the other end, and the two men exchanged a nervous glance. Each passing second was marked by the pulse of blood already audible behind Miles' ears. He held his breath, and realised that his friend was doing the same. And there was no face for them to see. Nothing to reassure them that Ushia Den SaiNor - or whatever his name was - was even close to friendly, or if it mattered in the long run whether he believed their story or not.

"Our sensors indicate that you have sustained an integrity breach," the voice continued. Julian tensed visibly. "And you may be venting plasma. Do you require assistance?"

The spacecraft shuddered yet again. "Do we ever?" muttered Miles as he clung to the corner of the control panel.

Falling back against his seat, Julian ran his fingers through his hair. He laughed, soft and breathy - the sound of sudden relief.

"That's an affirmative," he responded, although O'Brien was far from certain that he really needed to respond so loudly. And now the doctor was grinning. "Yes. Please. Anything you could do would be more than welcome."

"Understood." Miles wondered if he'd heard a slight chuckle in Ushia's reply. "Stand by. We'll tow you to our Central Base."

***

Outsiders. Aliens. And you are among the first in the entire system ever to see their kind. Certainly this is a great day to be leader of your people.

Governor MeiZar had scarcely been able to contain his excitement since U-an, his eager young aide, had summoned him to the Central Base of Dulan City with news that had made his fingertips tingle. Trembling with anticipation, he'd done his best not to rush about like an impatient young boy. Calm, authoritative, in control; that was what every good governor before him had been, and that was exactly how he wished to appear. He tried almost painfully hard to conceal the thundering beat of his own heart, and pushed away a foolishly boyish grin.

He was an old man. He'd held his position for so many years that every season seemed to pass him by before he'd had time to accustom himself to the close of the previous one. But this event - this could very well be the defining moment in an otherwise uneventful career.

Each of his hands was clasped tightly around the other, and both were concealed against his lower back. It was a trick he'd learnt long ago, which went some way to stilling whatever disquiet he often felt, and also forced him to stand a little taller than he might otherwise have done. But he suspected - with a fond sidelong glance to the woman at his right - that U-an had seen through his tricks from the very beginning.

As Governor MeiZar watched from the balcony, he looked down towards a line of young men and women who had stepped into formation beside the hull of the alien vessel. Each was dressed in a lightweight, ankle length gown of soft purple. MeiZar knew that the loose fitting garments concealed an impressive array of weaponry, and that even unarmed, any one of those young men and women could be a formidable opponent when fighting hand to hand. Even the strictly formalised procedures for meeting new alien species never carried any guarantees.

The door to the alien vessel levered itself open with a hiss of computer powered hydraulics. MeiZar kept his focus upon it, eagerly hoping for a glimpse of whatever was inside. But except for a weak and distant pulse of flashing green somewhere just beyond the entrance, the shuttle interior was almost entirely dark.

Shadows blanketing the doorway became a pair of humanoid men, both of them blinking in the sudden daylight. The first - whose upper lip curled slightly as he squinted in the glow of the Seron sun - was tall and slender, almost as if he'd been stretched into shape. His companion was only slightly shorter, although a little stocky, with hair like the fleece of the wild animals occasionally seen clambering around the cliffs of Aladth'a.

They stepped from their vessel and took in the scene before exchanging a silent glance between themselves.

This is it, thought MeiZar, although from what he saw of these aliens, they looked even more uncertain than he secretly felt. He strode forward, followed closely by U-an and two more of his aides. The pair watched mutely from the landing pad.

"Er…" said the shorter of the two men before MeiZar could even begin the speech he'd rehearsed on the way. His voice was rough but clear, and carried well upon the breeze. "I know how this must look pretty bad. But I'm an engineer myself. Honestly, given one or two people to assist - not to mention better tools than what there ever was on our vessel - I'm betting I can make whatever repairs we need, and we'll be on our way by this time tomorrow."

The governor chuckled. "I'll leave that to somebody who can tell one end of a phase inverter from the other. My name is Governor O-al Ruk MeiZar. I'm here to welcome you, on behalf of the inhabitants of Seron Dala."

"Oh. Well… er… Thank you. We're… honoured." There was something very precise about the way the darker alien spoke, even when he was so apparently lost for words.

Governor MeiZar wondered in secret what kind of engineer would go racing across the stars without first taking time to be sure he had the proper equipment, especially with the stories he'd heard - about scaly grey warriors patrolling the outer reaches of Seron space. But he allowed the thought to pass him by. Resisting the urge to comment was a useful skill for any politician, and doubtless their reasoning was valid.

"In the meantime," said U-an, whose warm smile hardly seemed practised at all. "You shall be our guests. Stay as long as you wish, and make our home your own."

"You're too kind," the taller man assured her. "Even so, we will need to be on our way as soon as possible."

"Indeed." But MeiZar's curiosity was piqued, and this time he could not hold it inside. "If you don't mind me asking, where is it that you plan to go?"

The pair exchanged a nervous glance. For a moment they appeared to be struggling for an answer, and when their reply finally came, each tripped over the other in a rapid, faltering stream.

"Uh…"

"We, er…"

"It's a secret."

"Absolutely. Top secret."

"Couldn't possibly say."

"That is, we…"

"Can't say. I understand," concluded MeiZar. The game of concealment and double bluff had never been one that he particularly cared to play. He knew that several others in his government felt differently. But as far as he was concerned, it was all more than a little pointless. As long as he and his people remained safe, and his planet relatively undisturbed, passing aliens could be as secretive as they liked. Still, he could not stop himself from reflecting that here was an odd pair of travellers to be involved in anything that would need to be concealed.


	9. Chapter Nine

As soon as their visitors were out of sight, Governor MeiZar dismissed his remaining staff, and turned his attention to U-an.

"What do you think?"

For a long time, there was silence, interrupted only by the whisper of a quietly meandering breeze. U-an stared at a distant point in front of her, revealing nothing in the supple curve of her spine, or the expression etched across her pale and slender face.

The governor held back a smile as his youngest advisor pushed a strand of long indigo hair away from her eyes. She was so controlled in almost every way, but had never been quite able to tame her own thick, tangled mane. Of course, it was of no help at all that the customs of her clan discouraged the use of many personal adornments, even when it was most practical.

Finally, U-an spoke. Her voice was thoughtful, soft and low. "I'm not sure," she told MeiZar. "There's certainly something unusual, but… This is the first ever encounter we've had with their species. Who's to say for sure that they aren't all this way?"

"Perhaps." MeiZar returned his focus to the now abandoned vessel.

"With permission, Sir, I'd like to invite our new friends to supper."

The old man stared at her, eyes wide, and found that he was unable to suppress an urge to tease. "Do you need my permission to entertain house guests, U?"

She laughed, a sound that reminded him of younger days. "I suppose not."

Finally stepping away from the alien craft, MeiZar reciprocated her soft chuckle. "But we are still on for lunch tomorrow, aren't we?"

"I wouldn't miss it, Sir." U-an's eyes always sparkled when she smiled. "Should I bring the drinks this time?"

***

"I cannot help you." A tall and slender dark haired man meandered around the near empty mess hall, calmly scrutinising everything around him - from the replicator, to the bulkheads, to the crimson fabric on the shoulders of Sisko's uniform. "And even if I did know the answer to your question, the Dominion has not authorised me to trade in information."

"The Dominion never authorised you to trade in tulaberries either," Sisko reasoned. It was not the first time he'd heard this particular song. "And they really oughtn't object. We're not asking for anything that's likely to cause them harm."

His visitor pressed a hand to the back of a nearby chair, as if to test its strength. "I do not have the information you require."

"I think you do," said the captain. "I've spent enough time with our mutual friend, Quark, to have learnt that there's precious little profit in knowing nothing, and much more in simply pretending not to know. There may even be a Rule of Acquisition or two…"

He paused, waiting for a response, which failed to come. Finally he took a deep inward breath, and spoke again.

"I'm beginning to suspect, Mister Ornithar, that you aren't as loyal to the Founders as you claim to think you are."

Straightening his back, the pale merchant answered in an especially clipped and cultured tone that Sisko had come to recognise as simmering irritation. "I am as loyal as anyone can be when those who demand my loyalty could very well annexe my home world on a whim."

"Just as I thought." The captain rose to his feet. His voice came out low and even, something close to a whispered growl. "The Federation and the Karemma have maintained a good trade arrangement, haven't they?"

There was silence from across the table, but he could tell that Ornithar was listening. Sisko allowed just a touch of sweetened nightshade to creep into his speech.

"And this will continue for as long as I continue to recommend it. But it would be a gesture of goodwill on your part to tell us what you know. After all, what harm can it do? You're already on my ship. Either way, whether you say anything or whether you don't, the Founders are highly unlikely to find out much more than that."

***

"Have you found anything?" asked Benjamin. The moment Ornithar's ship disappeared into the distance, he'd reached a decision, and hurried to meet up with Dax in Engineering.

She looked up from where she'd been hunched over a small display - probably for the entire time he was with the Karemma, if he knew her at all. The concentrated, thoughtful frown did not leave her eyes as they focused immediately on the captain's.

"Aside from that I'd appreciate a proper Science laboratory on the next ship that Starfleet sends us?" she joked. "No ground-breaking discoveries so far. You?"

"Funny you should mention it, Old Man." A brief, excited grin flashed across Ben Sisko's face at the chance to release the words he'd been longing to say. It was quickly lost behind a mask of hard determination, but not quickly enough to have escaped the notice of his long time friend.

He ignored her wry expression. "You know, I may have managed to find us a lead after all. Come with me. I'll tell you on the way."


	10. Chapter Ten

One thing's for certain, Julian thought at his very first glimpse of the multitude of officials waiting all around them. He'd never imagined that they would be met with such a fully formal reception. There had been so many of them, their formation so precise, so clearly pre-arranged. He wondered with no small amount of confusion if this was how the Federation's first contact procedures seemed to visiting aliens arriving at Deep Space Nine, especially those arriving after such an eventful journey.

Did their palms feel as coldly sweaty as his did at that moment? Did their hearts pound as fast and hard? And did they also arrive feeling equally speechless, startled, and perhaps even a little giddy?

As he and Miles were ushered away, he risked a nervous glance behind him at where the broken vehicle rested on its landing pad - still, lonely, and abandoned. It had been cramped within, sure. There would have been barely enough space for even a Ferengi to stand fully upright. But none of that prepared him for how remarkably small the shuttle appeared from without. Its metallic sides were slightly dented, streaked with the scars of what looked like burn marks. It reminded him of the soot from one of those nineteenth century Victorian chimneys. Whatever those were, they were ancient - the legacy of long ago singed or possibly oxidised metal.

She really is a rusty old can, isn't she?

But Julian did not dare to look back for too long. He was still accompanied - and no doubt closely watched - by a trio of the same stern faced, lilac clad youths who had been standing to attention beside their damaged shuttle. They bore no evidence of weapons. But at the same time, it was easy to recognise the hardened stares of what could only have been the local military.

Their guides, or guards - or whatever they were supposed to be - led O'Brien and Bashir to a well lit room, where smooth plaster extended all the way from floor to ceiling and where everything appeared to have been deliberately set at precise right angles: Accurate to the degree of a hair. Even the slender-backed greenery standing by the opposite wall had a distinctly straightened edge.

Stepping back at the entrance, their lead escort indicated with a silent, controlled gesture that the newcomers were to continue through it.

Julian's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?" he wanted to know.

"Procedure," insisted the young Seron man, his reply level and not at all fazed by Julian's suspicion. "It's exactly the same for all new arrivals."

Exchanging a none-too-subtle glance with Miles, Julian worried that all this procedure and formality would give them scant hope for a brief pit stop at Seron Mu. And what else might these people expect of them before the day was out?

***

At just about waist height, slightly to the left of the room's exact centre, two oddly rectangular bowls had been set upon a long table. Each was filled with what looked like an array of assorted colourful fruit - red, yellow, green, swirling purple. None of it was familiar.

Bashir crossed the carpeted floor, where he reached forward with one hand. "Julian. Don't touch that!" shouted O'Brien. His friend spun around to face him.

For a moment, Bashir just stared. His expression was startled, eyes wide open with surprise, and he still held tightly to one of the exotic, egg-shaped delicacies. "I wasn't about to eat it," he promised, against Miles' look of profound scepticism.

And then a peculiar grin spread across the young man's face. "You mean you really thought…?"

"Look, forget I said anything."

But instead of heeding his companion's words, Bashir raised his free hand to settle upon his own chest. "You were worried about me?" he teased. "Why, thank you, Miles. I'm touched."

"You're touched, right enough," growled O'Brien. "I already said forget it. Just eat the bloody thing, for all I care."

Placing the unknown fruit into its original position, the doctor ran a tricorder over the bowl and its contents. "It seems edible…" he muttered. But then he frowned. Tucking the device back into his belt, he moved to the edge of the room, to what looked like a long, white, oblong bench.

As he seated himself upon it, Julian folded his hands across his knees and looked around. There was a new expression on his face - agitated, troubled, a little shifty. O'Brien watched him, and realised he understood exactly what kind of edgy impatience had caused the sharp furrows now forming on the doctor's brow.

But he decided that the best idea was not to comment. For the moment, at least.

"You're not hungry?" said a voice at the open doorway. The woman standing by the entrance was instantly recognisable, from the supple curve of her spine, and even more so from the striking colour of her long, thick hair - somewhere between satin blue, deep burgundy, and dark raven black. It changed with every movement as light shifted across it, and trembled slightly in the near imperceptible indoor breeze.

Her voice had been deep, clear and husky - and pleasant, like a finely tuned cello. By way of explanation, she pointed to the as yet unconsumed selection of fruit on the table. "You haven't touched a thing."

"Not very hungry at the moment, no," O'Brien lied. "But thanks anyway."

He wondered if these people's stomachs also rumbled as persistently when they hadn't eaten since last night's supper. And even that had been nothing very nutritious. He'd lost his appetite half way through.

There's gonna be hell to pay when Keiko gets back, he recalled himself thinking. Still, that did not stop him from missing her smile. And the woman in the doorway had an uncannily similar expression to that of O'Brien's wife.

"Well, everything in this room is yours to use just as you like." She swept a hand in a broad arc across her chest. "So do please help yourselves."

She bowed, suddenly formal, and entirely in control. "And now to my own business here. My name is U-an, chief advisor to Governor MeiZar. I would be honoured if you would join me for dinner on this night."


End file.
